If you're learning about sports to "connect" with people using "small talk", assert your motivation is elitist anyway. "Working class people" are very capable of talking about things other than sports. Yet one of the reasons pro sports is so popular with "working class people" is that thinking about the issues that really affect them (rationally) is depressing. That thing about bread and circuses is real. So I deliberately make small talk with people about things that could actually matter to them, like, where their tax money is being spent.

(Oh, and since when is a STEM job not working class?)